Articles
| Midland Fly-In | ||
Middland Club Fly-inI left home at 7.55am on Saturday morning and set of to the Middland Fly-in. I picked John up at 9am in Armagh and we set of for Boora, Kilcormac, Co Offaly. We arrived just before 1pm and found a fantastic flying site, with runways of short grass in three directions. The site is in the middle of bog land with nothing but empty ground for miles in every direction. The club has an impressive open fronted large shelter which is well suited to put the models into still fully rigged in the event of the occasional rain shower.
We paid our fee and set up our models. John had his P47 Thunderbolt and two foamie jets with him while I brought my Elan Jet and electric Vanquish.
There were a number of modellers from NIJets at the event, speaking as the current Chairman this was nice to see, with most opting to stay over for the second day. However due to other commitments John and I could only stay for the one day.
Flying was in full swing when we arrived with both helicopters and fixed wing sharing the sky.
Seamus from the Letterkenny club had also travelled down with a number of models including his Bobcat, converted to turbine power. This flew really well with an impressive speed range. Another club member had a petrol powered Extra 260 with him, very nice model in the air.
I was speaking to a French guy who had travelled up from Cork to attend the event. He had an F4U Corsair with him and a Eurofighter Typhoon Turbine fitted with a JetCat P120SE. Unfortunately due to technical reasons it did not get to fly, a great pity as everyone was waiting to see it in the air. A really nice looking model.
The only mishap of the day that I saw was when a number of foamie FunJets took to the sky at the same time. The sky came alive with dog fighting models and eventually the inevitable happen as Seamus and Robert had a mid air. Neither model was destroyed but while the others were looking at the crash one of the other FunJets came down as the pilot mistook another model for his. This one was totalled unfortunately. Robert and Harry put on a formation flight, Harry with his Boomerang and Robert with his Harpoon. I thought it looked very impressive, now, I wonder if they are thinking of both building the same type of model. Now that would be cool.
John flew his P47 but landed part way through the flight due to engine trouble. I then flew my electric Vanquish and again had an empty sky to make the most of. Humm, do you think the others don't trust my flying as I always seam to get an empty sky??? With a long drive ahead of us we packed the van and set of home at 6pm after saying our goodbyes. I dropped John of and finally got home at 11.15pm, after a 420 mile round trip. It was a very enjoyable day but I must admit I had no problems getting to sleep that night. By Peter Carson Photos by John Pearson |
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Langford Model Aviation 2010